Magical Thinking Quotes

Someday an opportunity will come. Think about Harry Potter. His life is terrible, but then a letter arrives, he gets on a train, and everything is different for him afterward. Better. Magical." "That's just a story." "So are we- we're stories too.

We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humouring it as a piece of harmless fun.

One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.

Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.

Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

One of the ways by which astrology tricks human brains is via the Barnum effect, which is the process by which individuals take general and vague statements that could apply to anyone and anywhere, and find personal meaning in them.

Like any art, the creation of self is both natural and seemingly impossible. It requires training as well as magic.

Any sufficiently badly-written science is indistinguishable from magic.

A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.

I wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that.

Every intentional act is a magical act.

People don't understand computers. Computers are magical boxes that do things. People believe what computers tell them.

If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

You give anybody a billion dollars, and of course they are passionate. Passion is one of those things like willpower in that there's 'magical thinking' about it. You've got to be careful about 'magical thinking.'

Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.

I'm not, like - what's the word when you believe in a lot of magic? Superstitious.

If we believe in magic, we'll live a magical life. If we believe our life is defined by narrow limits, we've suddenly made those beliefs real.

I don't believe in angels, no. But I do have a wee parking angel. It's on my dashboard and you wind it up. The wings flap and it's supposed to give you a parking space. It's worked so far.

O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.

Superstition is the poison of the mind.

I have my Lucky Charms in the morning, and I feel magical.

There's something magical about putting yourself into life. You've got to stand up and take responsibility for your own life and you cannot abandon that.

Even now, I'm very superstitious, in silly ways. I always put my left boot on first. Or on set, I always tie my bow tie from right to left.

It would have been nice to have had unicorns.

Spin laws into gold.